


What's a Promise?

by Baby_Fangirl



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Cult
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 09:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12745224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baby_Fangirl/pseuds/Baby_Fangirl
Summary: Alternate Ending to AHS Cult. Ally comforts her wife suffering from PTSD





	What's a Promise?

A clock chimed two somewhere in the distance of dark, black Michigan, and Ally sat up in bed with a tired sigh. After a tiring moment of rubbing her eyes, she cast her gaze fondly at the woman beside her, curled up with the covers tight around her shoulder, fast asleep. She was glad to see that Ivy was sleeping so peacefully. She was the only one to see her wife now, truly see her. With the Butchery on main back in blooming, business, and dropping Oz off to school each morning, Ivy showed the world what they wanted to see, a strong, independent woman, who had suffered, and overcome.

But nobody ever fully overcomes the experience of trauma.

The short blonde would always laugh awkwardly and say that she was scared of nothing, but nothing doesn’t keep her awake at night, nothing doesn’t make her cry all of a sudden. Nothing isn’t what makes Ivy Mayfair Richards cling to her son and her wife for too long, afraid they would be taken away again. Nothing was Something.

And Ally still couldn't shake the intense sadness that had left her lying awake every night over the past few months, watching her wife sleep. She carefully tucked the duvet up to Ally's chin and left a light kiss on her cheek, before slipping out of bed.

There were nights when the brunette just couldn’t sleep. The councils, the elections, the pressing responsibility now that she was running in politics. But she wasn’t scared any more like she used to be. It was as if she and her wife had swapped roles.

 

The night was cold, now that the Winter months were finally here, and Ally shivered as she made her way towards the kitchen to get a glass of water. An involuntary gasp shortly descended from her lips as her bare feet made contact with the cold tiles on the floor as she padded around the table. Through her heavy eyes and aching head, she watched the sparkling moonlit water rush out of the tap and swirl around her glass, before dragging herself to the sofa to slowly sip at it. The brunette contemplated ambling up to Oz’s room. Being with her son always calmed her, it was relieving just watching his chest rise and fall with every breath.

But instead, she sat alone on the sofa, and thought about her wife.

Ivy had always had her quirks- she had been strong for as long as Ally had known her, and she adored her for it. She loved her over protection and humour, her exaggerated expressions, her ridiculous organization and planning... But these days she was just _Scared_. It didn’t even matter that Kai was dead. It was the nightmares that caused her such terror.

At a night, Ivy had told her that images flashed through her mind like a slideshow from hell. Death, blood, everything came back to here in the hours that were meant to be peaceful. Harrison, Winter, RJ, Gary, Rudy… She’d watched them all.

And where she herself had grown stronger… Ivy couldn’t manage a whole night without feeling physically sick from her thoughts.

Ally drained the last sip of water and let out a frustrated moan. All she wanted was to curl up and sleep as peacefully as...

Her eyes widened at the sound of thrashing and crying from the bedroom. She leapt up and hurried into the bedroom, where her wife was sitting upright in bed, wiping tears from her cheeks.

“Ivy, baby. What happened??” the brunette exclaimed, kneeling back on the bed beside her as she took her wife back into her arms, cradling her close.

Her body shook, limps trembling as Ivy clung tight to the arm that was around her. Her short blonde hair was sticking to the back of her neck with sweat and her eyes were swimming with unfallen tears. A deep breath rushed out of Ivy's slightly parted lips and she looked up.

“A-Ally, I just – it was a bad dream.”

Ally could just make out her twisting the crumpled bedsheets in her fist, Ivy’s special habit when she was scared or stressed. She reached over, stretching to turn on the lamp on the bedside table before positioning herself on top of the covers, next to her wife.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked gently, timidly reaching out to stroke Ivy's arm, but froze as the other woman involuntarily flinched.

The blonde sniffed, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand before glancing at the hand hovering in front of her. She slowly closed her fingers around Ally's, feeling a little sick and ashamed.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It’s all still fresh in my mind. He killed them all. No mercy… no second thought. I always figured I’d be next. And you… I was so scared for you!” Ivy choked on another sob and the brunette instantly began rubbing her arm, glad to feel her wife relax somewhat under her touch this time.

“Don't be sorry,” Ally hushed, still slightly too forcefully as a familiar anger tore through the pit of her stomach. She despised Kai for what he put Ivy through, she only whished he could’ve had the slow painful death he deserved. Ally hesitated, looking into the beautiful, sad, light eyes beside her. “I'm worried about you, Baby.”

There was a long silence as the sleepy blonde wondered how to respond. Her first instinct was to deny everything. As much as she didn't want to, Ivy was forced to admit to herself that clamming up and hiding her feelings from everyone, even the person she was closest to, had done nothing to help her; if anything, the exhaustion that tended to come hand in hand with putting on so many faces was dragging her down even more.

“I know,” she said slowly. “I – I just haven't been myself recently... or the past few months. I can’t even remember what it feels like, to wake up the way we used to, without the constant paranoia.”

Ally's eyebrows softly furrowed as she watched her lover's lip tremble while Ivy blinked rapidly to hide her watering eyes and tried to twist her lips into something resembling a smile. She let out a strangled cry before dissolving into a shaking heap of messy hair and tears.

Ally threw her arms around the sobbing mess of a woman in front of her, soothingly hushing her as she ran her fingers through the short cropped blonde hair.

“Ivy Mayfair-Richards, listen to me,” she said fiercely. “You are a strong woman. A really strong and beautiful woman that I love more than anything. I don’t know half of what you saw and did. But I want to make it right for you, and I am here to support you. Do you understand?”

Ivy extricated herself from her wife’s tight embrace and nodded, her heart melting in the radiant warmth of Ally's love.

“Thank you, Al.” She broke into the softest most genuine smile that the brunette had seen for a long time, letting a hollow chuckle escape from her lips. “I missed you then, Ally, more than anything. It all made me realize that I needed you in my life. Because it was so… fucking empty, when you weren’t in it. And even when you're not, you know, picking up my pieces, you make me feel like I'm really worth something. Thank you.”

Ally was suddenly at a loss for words, her brain and heart trying to keep up with everything that was said. The brunette smiled softly and cuddled her close.

“You _are_ worth something, Ivy – more than something! You're everything to me. Everything… You and Oz, you’re all I need” Ivy nodded silently, trying hard to believe the words that descended from the lips of her wife. “I mean it.” She hesitated. “I... I know that you're hurting at the moment, and I know that you need time to heal, okay? That... _cult_ was fucking horrible to you.”

Ivy chewed on her lip, ashamed and not wanting to meet Ally’s comforting gaze.

“Yeah. Yeah it was.”

The brunette gently stroked the other woman's damp cheek, wiping away the tear stains before hoking her fingers beneath Ivy’s chin and lifting her head to direct the blonde’s gaze back to her. “It’s going to get better, baby, I promise… can you try to believe that?”

Ivy was silent for a second, gazing into the trusting eyes of her wife before nodding stiffly.

“When I’m with you Ally… I really do start to feel like everything is going to be okay,” she candidly whispered. The brunette smiled warmly, before lightly pressing her warm lips to Ivy’s.

“I promise,”


End file.
